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Arnold Hugh Martin Jones and Michael Crawford

Adaeratio, the procedure whereby dues to the Roman state in kind were commuted to cash payments. The related word adaerare first appears in ce 383 (Cod. Theod. 7. 18. 8) and the practice is ...
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Adaeratio, the procedure whereby dues to the Roman state in kind were commuted to cash payments. The related word adaerare first appears in ce 383 (Cod. Theod. 7. 18. 8) and the practice is characteristic of the later Roman empire. But it is attested for certain dues supplementary to the standard form of *taxation in Cicero's Verrines and Tacitus' Agricola, along with its attendant abuses. In the later Roman empire the procedure was also applied to distributions by the Roman state in kind. The transaction was sometimes official, sometimes unofficial, and might be made on the initiative of the government, the tax-collector (see publicani), or the taxpayer in the case of levies, or of either party in the case of distributions. The rate might be settled by bargaining, or fixed by the government at the market price or at some arbitrary sum. The range of commodities involved was large. Just as dues and distributions in kind had assumed greater importance because of the collapse of the coinage system in the 3rd cent. ce, so a consciousness of the existence of a stable gold coinage after Constantine led to a slow move back to transactions in money, normally gold, over the late 4th and 5th cents.Less

Andrew Dominic Edwards Lewis

Aerarii, payers, were a class of Roman citizens who had incurred the *censors' condemnation for some moral or other misbehaviour. They were required to pay the poll-tax (*tributum) at a ...
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Aerarii, payers, were a class of Roman citizens who had incurred the *censors' condemnation for some moral or other misbehaviour. They were required to pay the poll-tax (*tributum) at a higher rate than other citizens. The origin of the class is obscure. Mommsen argued that a payer was originally one who had no landed property and was therefore disqualified from certain public rights such as voting and military service but had to pay the poll-tax in proportion to his means.

Graham Burton

Aerarium, derived from aes, denotes ‘treasury’. The main aerarium of Rome was the aerarium Saturni, so called from the temple below the Capitol, in which it was placed. Here were kept state ...
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Aerarium, derived from aes, denotes ‘treasury’. The main aerarium of Rome was the aerarium Saturni, so called from the temple below the Capitol, in which it was placed. Here were kept state documents, both financial and non-financial (including leges (see lex (1)) and *senatus consulta which were not valid until lodged there), and the state treasure, originally mainly of bronze (aes) but including also ingots of gold and silver and other valuables. The *tabularium (1) was built near it in 78 bce.The aerarium was controlled by the quaestors under the supervision of the senate, with a subordinate staff of scribae, *viatores, etc. The *tribuni aerarii, men of a property-class a little below the knights, were probably concerned with making payments from the tribes into the treasury. The aerarium sanctius was a special reserve, fed by the 5 per cent tax on emancipations. Treasure was withdrawn from it in 209 bce and on other occasions.Less

Michael Crawford

Aes, bronze, also more loosely copper or brass, hence (a) money, coinage, pay, period for which pay is due, campaign; (b) document on bronze. The earliest Roman monetary ...
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Aes, bronze, also more loosely copper or brass, hence (a) money, coinage, pay, period for which pay is due, campaign; (b) document on bronze. The earliest Roman monetary system involved the weighing out of bronze by the pound or its fractions (see weights); transactions per aes et libram, by bronze and balance, became fossilized in Roman private law as a formal means of transferring ownership. Sums recorded in the sources as ‘so many aeris (gravis, heavy, or rudis, raw)’ are to be taken as intended to mean so many pounds of bronze and then so many coins weighing (more or less) a pound and called asses. In the late 140s bce, the Roman state changed from reckoning in asses to reckoning in sestertii = ¼ denarius = 4 asses each; at this point certain valuations were probably transferred from asses to the same number of sestertii, although the real value was different.

John Percy Vyvian Dacre Balsdon and Antony Spawforth

The purpose of the alimentary foundations in the Roman empire was to give an allowance for feeding children, and this was achieved by the investment of capital in mortgage on land, the ...
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The purpose of the alimentary foundations in the Roman empire was to give an allowance for feeding children, and this was achieved by the investment of capital in mortgage on land, the mortage-interest being paid to, and administered by, cities or state-officials. The system originated in civic *euergetism, the earliest known benefactor being the senator T. Helvius Basila at *Atina in the late Julio-Claudian period (ILS997). A later benefactor, the younger Pliny, who gave a similar endowment to *Comum, has recorded his reasons for doing so (Ep. 7. 18). Inscriptions record similar private benefactions both in Italy and in the provinces, the east included. Gifts from the imperial *fiscus to Italian towns for this purpose were first made by *Nerva and *Trajan. The evidence for the imperial scheme in Italy (continuing at least until the early 3rd cent. ce) comes mainly from honorific inscriptions set up by the beneficiaries and two alimentary tables from Veleia and Ligures Baebiani (ILS 6675; 6509).Less

D. W. R. Ridgway

Amber, a fossil resin, has a wide natural distribution in northern Europe and is also found in Sicily: so far as is known, the amber from the classical Mediterranean was Baltic. It has been found at ...
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Amber, a fossil resin, has a wide natural distribution in northern Europe and is also found in Sicily: so far as is known, the amber from the classical Mediterranean was Baltic. It has been found at Ras Shamra (*Ugarit) and Atchana, and also appears in the terremare (see terramara) in northern Italy. The earliest amber from the classical world comes from the Shaft-Graves at *Mycenae; amber is rare in Minoan Crete. There is evidence for amber workshops as early as the neolithic in the east Baltic area, and during the early and middle bronze age amber travelled from west Jutland across Germany along the rivers to the Po (Padus) and the head of the Adriatic. The trade was probably conducted by central European middlemen who could exchange metal for amber for onward transmission both to the east Mediterranean and westwards to Britain. Amber beads were common throughout bronze age Europe, and reached Brittany, central France, and the Iberian peninsula; a gold-bound amber disc from Isopata (LM III A) and a crescentic necklace from Kakovatos in *Elis (LH II A) have striking British affinities.Less

Paul Erdkamp

Imperial Rome was by far the largest city of its time, and feeding its populace—about one million according to most estimates—required an ever-watchful eye on the part of the authorities. ...
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Imperial Rome was by far the largest city of its time, and feeding its populace—about one million according to most estimates—required an ever-watchful eye on the part of the authorities. The system supplying Rome, the armies, and some other cities with grain and other foodstuffs came to be known as the annona. The Roman authorities began to intervene directly in the food supply of the city of Rome in the mid-Republican period. A momentous step in this development was the introduction of the grain distribution (frumentatio) by C. Sempronius Gracchus in 123 bce. In the Principate, the annona became a central feature of the relationship between the emperor and the capital’s inhabitants. At the end of Augustus’s reign the office of the annona came to be headed by a praefectus annonae, who had recourse to a staff of subordinates in Rome, Ostia, and Puteoli. Apart from the produce of the imperial estates, Rome collected tax grain primarily in Sicily, Sardinia, and Africa, and from Augustus onwards in Egypt; Rome was then largely sustained by this flow of public grain. The main responsibility of the praefectus annonae was to administer the transportation by means of shipping contracts from the grain provinces to Rome and to curb fraud and speculation on the grain market. The prefect also offered legal support for private businessmen involved in the annona. Part of the public stock was distributed at the frumentationes, which fed a significant part, but not all, of the populace. When Constantinople was founded as a new capital by Constantine, Rome lost access to the Egyptian tax-grain and relied heavily on Africa for grain and olive oil. The system of the annona was enforced more strictly, and shippers involved in the food supply of Rome found themselves bound to their obligations to the annona. In the West, the system ended when Africa was conquered by the Vandals in 429 ce. In the East, Constantinople continued to rely on Egypt until it was conquered by the Persians in 617 ce.

P. J. Rhodes

Apodektai (‘receivers’), at Athens, a board of officials who received the state's revenues and, in the 5th cent. bce, paid them into the central state treasury, in the 4th, apportioned them ...
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Apodektai (‘receivers’), at Athens, a board of officials who received the state's revenues and, in the 5th cent. bce, paid them into the central state treasury, in the 4th, apportioned them (merizein) as directed by law among separate spending authorities. They were appointed by lot, one from each of the ten tribes or *phylai (Ath.Less

Marcus Niebuhr Tod and Simon Hornblower

The submission of disputes to a neutral person or body, whose verdict the disputants agreed in advance to accept, was recognized among Greeks from earliest times. Many states (e.g. Sparta, Gortyn, ...
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The submission of disputes to a neutral person or body, whose verdict the disputants agreed in advance to accept, was recognized among Greeks from earliest times. Many states (e.g. Sparta, Gortyn, Ephesus, Lampsacus) had public arbitrators, but we know details only about Athens. There private διαιτηταί (arbitrators), not necessarily citizens, were often used to settle claims on an equitable rather than legal basis (Arist. Rh. 1. 13); public arbitrators, appointed from citizens in their sixtieth year, settled private claims involving more than ten drachmas: Ath. pol. 53. Such cases were referred to arbitrators by the ‘Forty’ (four magistrates from each of the ten *phylai or tribes). Once accepted by both parties, the arbitration was binding, but appeal to the *dikastēria (lawcourts) was still possible, so to that extent the διαιτηταί were strictly mediators, not arbitrators.Hellenistic states often invited friendly neighbour-states to send a ‘foreign tribunal’ or ‘sent-for judges’ (ξενικὸν δικαστήριον, δικασταὶ μετάπεμπτοι, usually numbering three or five), to judge civil and sometimes criminal cases affecting their citizens.Less

A. N. Sherwin-White and Antony Spawforth

For private arbitration see D. Roebuck and B. de Loynes de Fumichon, Roman Arbitration (2004). The history of Roman inter-state arbitration begins with the intervention of Rome as a great power in ...
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For private arbitration see D. Roebuck and B. de Loynes de Fumichon, Roman Arbitration (2004). The history of Roman inter-state arbitration begins with the intervention of Rome as a great power in the politics of the Hellenistic world. Rome took the place of the kings who had often acted as international arbitrators between the free cities and leagues of the Greeks. Such disputes were referred to the senate, which decided the general issue, but sometimes left particular points to a third party with local knowledge for settlement. Rome did not, in the earliest period, enforce the acceptance of her arbitral awards. While not abusing her influence, Rome tended to accept the state of affairs at the time when the appellants first came under her influence as the standard of reference. This practice tended, as her authority increased, to merge into the defence of the privileges of her allies. With the formation of provinces and the consolidation of the empire, arbitration lost its international character, since, except by special permission, which was sometimes allowed, notably in Sicily, the subject peoples could not turn elsewhere, even if they wished to, although Rome tolerated the Greek institution of ‘foreign judges’ until well into the 2nd cent. ce (see Greek section, above).Less